After identical twins Edgar and Allan Poe (great-great-great-great grand nephews of the Edgar Allan Poe) are expelled under suspicion of cheating on a standardized test, their Aunt Judith agrees to homeschool them, with comical results.
The twins' principal does not understand that Edgar and Allan, "whose knowledge was always identical, however far apart they were," would never cheat on a test. The fact that they got the same three answers wrong in precisely the same way served as proof. Why couldn't Mr. Mann see that? Instead, he calls them in to expel them, and allows an odd fellow called Mr. Archer time alone with the boys, who clips a lock of each boy's hair and exits as the twins' guardians arrive. What could he be up to? The plot thickens when their black cat, Roderick Usher, goes missing.
Gordon McAlpine (Joy in Mudville), making his children's book debut, intersperses chapters in which Edgar Allan Poe (despite admonishment from boss William Shakespeare) attempts to leave helpful clues for his namesake twins, a few of which go awry. Edgar and Allan, being clever boys who "believed that oddities and seeming coincidences were actually the world's way of communicating secret messages," nonetheless pick up on them. Sam Zuppardi's drawings of the clues, cameo portraits and posters augment the story as well as readers' interests. Some of the literary allusions will be more amusing to adults than to young readers, but children will certainly get the references to Oz, and cheer on the twins as they decode the clues to track down their beloved cat. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness